1. My favorite book-buying kid just stopped into the shop again tonight. He bought another Captain Underpants, explaining that his school only has two copies of this particular volume and they are in high demand. I replied that I hate giving books back, that it’s much better to own my own copies. He answered, “That’s exactly why we’re in an economic crisis right now” and then gave me a 20 cent tip.

2. I’m still dreadfully behind in my blog reading. I know you’ll forgive me, but that’s not enough for me. I want to be there, all up in your business. I miss you. And listen, if something huge has happened to you and I’m the dick who hasn’t commented in some way? Never be afraid to email me a verbal slap upside the head. I’m not kidding.

3. Since you were all so curious and supportive about this past weekend, I’ll just tell you: I was meeting with magazine editors. It was like speed dating for writers, like seven job interviews in a row. It was exhausting, terrifying, and ultimately exhilarating. Now you know.

4. The contest has ended! The new owner of Alicia’s beautiful pair of earrings is Cathy at Noble Pig. Congratulations!

5. Finally, the announcement.

If I had to guess, I’d say it’s about 400 square feet. Maybe even 500. I was so excited I forgot to ask.

It is old. It is rich with character and water stains, built-ins and cobwebs. It has freshly scrubbed window sills; a carefully swept pine floor, painted brown. It has stairs for sinking down into inspiration, high vaulted ceilings for dreaming up. It has a donated desk carried in by friends, and a vase-full of fresh flowers delivered in person by my worried but always supportive husband.

The copper key seems to sparkle even more in my palm.

It is a writer’s studio, and it is mine.

I am wearing a girdle. We are in the truck and I can barely move, each bump of the struts forcing my internal organs to spoon. It’s ridiculous, really, that I would wedge myself into this modern version of that old sadistic contraption, my hip and belly fat now resting uncomfortably near my neck. It’s ridiculous because I see so many of these people, these gentle people, pretty regularly on a day-to-day basis. It’s not like I traveled far beyond my bittersweet sticky hometown in the first place. It’s not like they don’t know what I look like now, how much older, thicker, quieter I’ve gotten. It’s not like Facebook hasn’t made our lives a high school Groundhog’s Day as it is. Still, it’s my 15th reunion and so, this girdle. This awful girdle. Me, and it, at my high school reunion. Thick as thieves.

I walk in cold with sweat. I introduce my husband over and over, even though he’s met them all a hundred times. He was there, after all, in the beginning, whether they remember this or not. He was that faithful payphone ring in the commons, that daily lunch call, that lifeline thrown to this drowning girl whose waters were always choppier than anyone else’s, or so it always seemed to her, me. Some days I close my eyes and I can still smell the sharks.

These people, however, were not the sharks. These people, my former classmates, still make me smile, this small town menagerie of Midwestern kindness. There are a few I wish I’d spent more time with. There are a few I wonder if I really knew at all. There are several I want to snatch and drag out back right now, ask them everything I never realized I wanted, needed, to know. Finally take that smoke.

For a tiny moment between laughs and shifting feet I remember how much I cared. I remember how often I wept, how tightly I clenched, how much I thought I lost. I don’t remember the details, the hard facts, as much as I remember the grief, the angst, the flashes of self-hatred and hurt, the bewilderment. The regret.

The truth is I barely survived high school. I don’t know how many of my classmates realize that, I honestly don’t. I don’t know if their memories are better than mine, if they look at me and see only that hot mess of a kid, that girl who sort of lost it halfway through… or if time has softened their perceptions. They are certainly friendly now, more than fair in their faith, more than I think I deserve. I am grateful.

My freshman year was an awful shock, my sophomore year a blur of rebellion, my junior year a singularly focused mission of escape. My senior year never happened, I’d already gone off to college. (Mission accomplished.) One boy defined that second year for me, in the most awful, awful way. A different boy bolstered that third year. Thank God for that boy in my third year, that boy who stands beside me now, at my reunion. Every five minutes or so I steal a glance and he’s always looking my way. All these years later.

I can’t figure out if I’m a fool or not. I look at each of these faces and there’s not a single one I dislike, not a one I thought ill of then or now—but did they feel the same? Or did they whisper themselves hoarse behind my back? It’s a thought that used to disturb me far more often than it does these days, these days where I just don’t care the way I once did. In fact, the only thing that truly shakes me now is this quiet sense of loss, this active noticing of the places people should be standing, people who no longer are, much the way my watercolor artist mom paints the negative spaces into a glorious whole. The rest is easy, light, all pastel cream tubes of color and liquid and sun. The beer is smooth and cheap, the meats miniature and saucy, the laughs thick and abundant. I rock my best friend’s baby. I inhale his newness. I grin at my lot, my blessed, blessed lot.

Later, much later, our truck in my parents’ driveway, the flex of Dave’s jeans as he climbs the stairs, a sudden smack of dizzy, of disorientation. He disappears inside the house and I stare at that front porch, framed by his windshield, an old movie flickering, and I see him there, I see us, there, the first time his hand dared creep inside my shirt, right there on that swing, I watch it play out. I don’t want to look away. He steps out now, interrupts the film, a sweet solid dad behind his old feverish ghost, our daughters draped across his shoulders. Our girls. When did this happen?

Our oldest is now a fourth grader. She blinks, all heavy sleep and confusion in the backseat. I remember my classmates as fourth graders, me and Joel colliding into concussion at recess, Eliza dumping her retainer in the hot lunch bin, Dusty and his box cars, Miss Suzy and her Steamboat and her glorious curses on the bus. Most of all I remember that I was me, that we were us, and I look at my daughter and I wonder what’s to come. I wonder what will plague her, what she’ll be thankful for, whose salty forearm she’ll study in the midnight glow as it steers her family home, everything she ever cared about, everything that ever really meant something, safe, as long as he’s at the wheel.

I used to roll my eyes at the very word, mommyblogger, spit it from sneered lips so I wouldn’t have to hold its taste in my mouth. And by “used to” I actually mean right up until this past Saturday, when I greedily gobbled an entire crow pie, followed by a cupcake chaser.

We all do it. We moms who blog have been trained to accept that we’re not supposed to like being called mommybloggers. Condescending newscasters say the word like they’ve got a mouthful of honey, closely guarded by bees. Tech and pro bloggers use it as the new “You throw like a girl.” Even those of us who clearly see the inherent misogyny and anti-feminist rhetoric folded neatly into these views often have our own way of dismissing the mommyblogger anyway. Maybe you’re not a parent. Maybe you’ve got a niche´. Maybe you’re a rock star, a professional, a businesswoman, an entrepreneur. In my case, I hid behind my Defend the Sacred Art of Writing shroud (if you squint you can see Mary in the red wine stain, I think.) I told myself the only thing I could write that would be worth your time should be well-written and universal. Why do you want to hear about my kids when you’ve got your own? Why would you want the details of my trip to the zoo, to see my vacation pics, to copy down my recipes? It made sense to me that I should only pop in here when I had something Very Important to say, which is probably why I hardly ever post. Back in the day, when I first started out, I posted all the time. Sometimes even twice a day. I posted about every little thing, and somewhere along the way I started to look down on myself and, eventually, on you, for doing just that.

Look, I’ll admit it: I’m flattered when I’m named to a Top Best Favorite Important List, however arbitrary [insert witty self-deprecating remarks here, of course.] I can privately vamp in front of my blogging mirror with the best of them, draw hearts into my breath’s fog on the glass, finger-swipe MD + MD 4EVR! and smooch my reflection. Figuratively, I mean. (Ahem.) I’m sorry, but in this manufactured cult of blog celebrity I just have a hard time believing that those who benefit aren’t flat-out thrilled. The new blogging, by nature, is all about instant gratification and positive reinforcement. It’s very rare that a blogger reads another blogger’s post and comments, “Hm. Yeah, I didn’t really like this.” And for some bloggers, there are 50, 100, maybe hundreds of bra-throwing comments–how can that not do something to your world view? The problem is, when cream rises to the top it sometimes curdles.

I’m not saying that those who’ve enjoyed big blogging “success” don’t deserve it–they do, whether because they’re just that good or because they’ve best learned the game. And I’m not trying to say I don’t prefer a more universal message, that I’m not still drawn more to sock-me-in-the-gut writing and provocative prose–I am. But I think somewhere in this gigantic popularity contest, in this never-ending quest for traffic and status, even in our well-intentioned movements to elevate the non-traditionally published writer, the work-at-home mom, women in general, we’ve made the mommyblogger our whipping girl and I, for one, am a little ashamed.

Blogging, in the beginning, was about connection–remember? This whole thing got started for so many because the front porch neighborhood is now an endangered species. Mothers have become increasingly isolated in the real world, and so they gave birth to online relationships. For so many women, these connections are as real and as vital to survival as any in my own life.

Most of my best friends don’t read this blog. Frankly, I think it annoys them. When we talk on the phone or over coffee, I don’t say things like, “Did you notice the way the snow ices the pines like yogurt covered pretzel sticks?” Believe me, they’d hang up. No, we talk about our kids. We talk about our vacations. We talk about our recipes. (Okay, maybe not our recipes, heh.) This weekend, surrounded by 25 “mommybloggers” I didn’t think I’d have any connection with, I had an aha moment of which Oprah would’ve been proud–Oh! That’s why they share pictures of their kids. That’s why they blog about their vacations. That’s why they post recipes. They are talking to their friends. Their friends are checking in on their lives. And damn, many of them can really write, but that’s not why they’re doing this. It’s not about SEO for them, or making it onto some made-up list. It’s not about creative writing coursework. And why, oh why, is that any less valid than what everybody else does?

Are there exceptions? Absolutely. Are there blogs that exist solely to trick traffic and leech free swag? Yes. But these are not mommybloggers. These are trickster leeches.

I guess all of this is to say I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the mommyblogger bashing from all sides. And though I don’t think of myself as a person who bashes anyone else, I think I realized this weekend that I’ve been doing it all along. And I’d like to stop.

On Saturday I spent real quality time with amazing women. Women I’m ashamed to say I’d prejudged, women I assumed prejudged me, women I thought I’d have nothing in common with based on paragraph long bios and two-dimensional Twitter persona’s. But when I met them–all of them vastly different, each of them beautiful, unique, individuals–I liked them instantly. And when I heard what each of them had to say about who they were, about why they blogged, about what connection and community meant to them, I felt a humbling so powerful I could hardly sit up beneath its weight. I left that place and I wanted to shout from the rooftops that I was wrong, that you are wrong, that you don’t have to identify with it but you certainly don’t have to relentlessly ridicule it, either. I wanted to dig out my old ring sling and dance some babies to sleep around the fire, I wanted to pound my proud mommyblogging chest and howl ’til all the other moms appeared on their porches to greet the moon with me.

And I guess that’s what this post is.

2:00am and I can’t remember whether or not I got that mystery dirt out from under the nail on my fourth finger. Blinking desperately into the darkness at the ceiling I know is there but can’t see, I’m trying to remember if I ever found the fingernail clippers with the handy swing-out file. Every morning when I wake up the first thing my mind does is take quick inventory of all the things that are still true, but waking prematurely causes a series of misfires and all I can think about is that thin line of crud, how I’d worked at it with every key and file folder and dead pen within reach but just couldn’t get to it without the right tool. It was no use. Nothing fit.

Maybe it’s better I couldn’t find it, I might have used it as a weapon. I might have shivved the condescending bastards at the Internet company, or the jackass parked in the next stall saturating my hair with his toxic smoke.  I’d pulled in to the grocery store lot wiped out and cynical after 12 hours away from my family, sent for juice boxes and dish soap before heading home from my shift at the bookstore. I’d slammed my door and taken a deep drink of the October night air and the nicotine sneak attack seizing of my lungs felt like the final insult and there came the hot prickle of tears. Walking quickly inside I thought about all the people I’d encountered that day and how they all seemed sort of ashen and gray, a bit moody, kind of defensive, and despite my funk somewhere in me I understood that they were just reflecting my silly grief back to me, that all day I’d been a walking funhouse mirror, and so I tried to reverse some of it by offering the guy behind me a cart but he pivoted for the baskets instead and so the moment was gone.

Under the cold fluorescent glare I’d balked at the juice box aisle and headed instead to the produce. The craving for something real was like a phantom itch, an undeniable ache. I’d contemplated the broccoli and it wasn’t enough to buy the convenient pre-washed pre-cuts, I wanted the whole head and I wanted to rip the stalks myself and feel their nubbley weight beneath the cool stream of water from my own sink, running through my own fingers. I’d cradled a dripping head of lettuce like a baby, palmed pepper after pepper into my cart and moved on to the cheese, chose a bag of fresh curds and held it for a moment to my face. Took a deep breath.

Leaving the parking lot I’d turned right instead of left, took one last drive past the bookstore where mere hours earlier I’d sat down with the man who’s like family to me and broke the news, something I’d known for quite a while but refused to acknowledge, something I thought I’d never need to say. But six years and two months ago I didn’t know I’d be a paid writer with deadlines and dreams. Six years and two months ago I didn’t have two kids in school to miss me in the evening hours, instead I was with one child or another 24-hours a day and the bookstore was my respite, the loamy smell of books and old paint, the unique silence and comfort of a room of my own, albeit borrowed. I don’t have to borrow anymore and things change and though I know it was the right thing to say goodbye, I don’t know why I don’t feel more relief than grief. Is it strange that a little part-time minimum wage job has defined me so much for so long? Is it weird that I feel a little lost without it, like I can’t find myself in a crowd?

3:00am and it doesn’t feel like an hour has passed. Maybe theories like relativity and laws like gravity and time let loose in the middle of the night and dance and point and laugh. I remember now while driving home I’d reached into the bag in the passenger seat and ripped a handful of lettuce from the head, pressed it into my mouth and tried to chew my way back to real and fine. It didn’t sustain and so I’d reached for the curds but no amount of muscle could rip open that bag. So I’d fumbled in the console and there they were, the elusive nail clippers. Had they been within reach all the time?  I’d swiveled open the file and cut into the bag, but then what?

I can see the silhouette of my cat’s head in the inky dark and the rise and fall of Dave’s chest, I can taste the creamy dill of the cheese curds and I can feel the sad weight of my decision in my gut, but for the life of me I can’t remember if I finally cleaned that nail.

I’ll never forget the first time I realized blogging cast a wider beam beyond the pinprick light of my own world. I had followed one of those “blogs that link here” buttons on someone else’s site, and discovered the world of Technorati. Intrigued, I’d entered my own blog’s URL and up popped two or three of my real life friends’ sites linking to mine and that’s when I saw it — there was some other blog called The Ghost of a Smile, and Okay, Fine, Dammit was listed in her sidebar. And I didn’t even know her. It totally blew my mind. I thought it was the weirdest thing.

So I kept an eye on her, trying to figure out what sort of stalker would read the blog of a person she didn’t even know. Eventually, we both delurked and began commenting on each other’s blogs, and by that time I’d learned what blogrolls were and that perhaps neither of us was a weirdo obsessive nut.

The funny thing is, she only lives about an hour away from me. And though I’ve come to feel like I know her as well as I know half the people I interact with on a daily basis, we’ve never met. I’ve met Bossy, for pete’s sake, and she lives about 2,000 miles away — but I’d never met Heather. It was a downright travesty…. until last week.

I was sifting through my Reader when I saw Heather’s latest post was titled, “Wake Up Maggie.” I clicked over to see she had two tickets to the next evening’s David Sedarisreading, and I should email her. After picking up the pieces of my popped off head, I did just that. Less than 24 hours later, I found myself in heaven.

Of course, I was late. I came directly from a meeting at Emma’s school, drove like a bat out of hell, sprinted the two blocks from the parking ramp into the fancy theater, texted Heather as I ran. She replied, “He’s running late,” and I didn’t find out until I was seated sweaty and breathless in the darkening theater that he was late because of her. He’d been entranced by her shoes and by the fact that she speaks Porteuguese, and he’d held up the show signing her book. You’ll have to read her version for confirmation.

So Heather was lovely. She was tiny, practically half my size, but I didn’t hate her for it. Her laugh was generous. Her shoes were super, just like Sedaris said. As for Sedaris, well… he was incredible. The way he turned his phrases, twisted and tossed them like licorice over his shoulder, left me feeling the strangest mixture of elation and despair. I sat rapt, much like I imagine a young ballerina feels at the Bolshoi.

He finished the show by reading from another author’s work, a bookhe said was perfect in every way except that Sedaris hadn’t written it himself. He said he would give away a signed copy of Saunders’ book to the first person to get to the signing table after the show who could speak Portuguese. Clearly Heather and David were now BFF’s. It was a direct invitation made to her before 2,200 people. My head popped off again, which happened easier this time what with the slapshod way I’d glued it back together the night before. And then it happened again, when I went with my Portuguese-speaking blind date to the front of the line and she had Sedaris sign the book to me, since she’d already had one book signed by him a mere two hours earlier. Seriously, how lovely is this woman? *pop!*

After the show, we went across the street to have a glass of wine and speak aloud to each other for the first time in our lives, and when I left for home an hour later the line to meet David Sedaris still stretched around the building.

:::contented sigh:::

Meeting Heather was the highlight in a long list of good things that have come my way since I discovered blogging last May. I have virtually-met scads of people cooler than I will ever be. I’ve been moved to laughter and tears on a daily basis while reading your words. I’ve been inspired and learned so much in your responses to my posts. And, lately, there’s been stuff. Great stuff. The incomparable Flutter is making me this awesome bird mobile and I won $25 worth of coffee from Dory and I won these handmade earrings from Alicia at oh2122.blogspot.com.

Aren’t they pretty?

Which brings me to the giveaway. I’m not giving you my signed book (are you kidding me?), but I want to give you something so you don’t hate me for all this good luck. So I’ve talked to Alicia and she has agreed to give away another pair of earrings to a random commenter on this post! So check out her new etsy shop, and if you want to swipe a pair of earrings just like this pair, leave a comment.

Really, what I mean to say is thank you. Thank you for reading this blog. Thank you for gracing me with your comments. Thank you for having contests that I win when I never win anything in real life. Thank you for David Sedaris and coffee and birds and earrings and surprises and love. Thank you for respectfully expressing your political persuasions just because I ask. Thank you for bravely confessing your own stories of abuse when I talk about domestic violence. Thank you for being the reason this blog has come to mean so much to me, the reason it’s taken on a life of its own that I never expected back when I first discovered some stranger named Heather wanted to read what I wrote. Just…. thank you.

Who knew?

Contest ends one week from today, on Sunday, October 19th, at noon central time. I’ll draw the winner and announce it on Monday the 20th. Good luck!